1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a dental handpiece holder and a dental treatment assembly by use thereof.
2. Prior art
The applicant of the present invention has proposed a handpiece holder which can accommodate a handpiece in such a manner that the handpiece can be detached easily from the holder by operator's one hand holding the handpiece like a pencil during dental treatment but has no possibility of dropping from the holder and that the holder is scarcely subjected to accumulation of dust and dirt for enhanced sanitation as described in the Japanese Utility Model Application No. 55-51626 (Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 60-33939).
The holder is used to hold the handpiece in the horizontal or slightly inclined condition. It has a structure connecting the receiving section on its leading side and the receiving section on its trailing side, both receiving sections having a shape of a gutter. The receiving section on the leading side has three grip sections in total disposed on both sides of the receiving section on the leading side to hold the base section (rear side) of the grip section of the handpiece to be held like a pencil. In addition, the receiving section on the trailing side holds the large diameter handle section of the handpiece's rear section. This holder is thus relatively long in the axial direction and the handpiece is held in the relatively long range from the base section of the grip section to the large diameter handle section of the handpiece.
On the other hand, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 53-1600, so-called multi-joint type handpieces have been developed, wherein each of the main units of various handpieces can be replaceably attached to the joint section connected to a tube containing pipes and wires used to supply pneumatic air, water, electricity and light for dental treatment or for driving such handpieces so that only the main unit of the handpiece can be replaced depending on the purpose of treatment. A system, wherein a handpiece's main unit with a built-in illumination unit can be replaced with a main unit without a built-in illumination unit very easily, has already been used practically for air turbine handpieces for example.
Although the dental handpiece described in the above-mentioned Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 60-33939 is superior as described above, it still has the following problems to be solved. As described above, the holder is relatively long in the axial direction and holds the handpiece in the long range from the grip section to the handle section of the handpiece. In addition, when the handpiece is attached to or detached from the holder, the handpiece slides in the axial direction along the receiving section of the holder. At the time of attaching or detaching the handpiece to or from the holder, in particular when attaching the handpiece to the holder, the operator's hand holding the handpiece like a pencil is apt to contact the holder. As a result, the operator's hand contaminated inside the mouth of a patient may contaminate the holder or on the contrary the contaminated holder may contaminate the operator's hand. Furthermore, it is troublesome to sterilize the holder since the holder has receiving sections on its leading and trailing sides and is relatively long in the axial direction.